Review: IN THE EARTH

Martin, a young botanist, travels to a remote scientific station near a large wood in order to perform some checks in the forest. After a COVID-like series of health checks (there is a pandemic in the cities) he takes in some of the local folk art still evident in the ex-lodge and takes in some of the legends. All very colourful but he does have a job to do. He packs up with fellow scientist Alma and they set off into the woods on foot. Coming across an unoccupied tent, they note more examples of the local wood spirit seen in the art at the lodge. That night they are attacked in their own tents and wake to find their equipment trashed and their shoes stolen. City-bod Martin gashes his foot almost immediately and has to limp with a branch for a crutch through the bush until they both stop at the sight of the wild looking Zac whose tent is huge and houses enough room for them, some druggy fruit wine and shoes, glorious shoes. But if the relief of any of this is sending alarm bells it might already be too late to run.

There is so much spoilable plot after this that I'm going to stop it right here. There's still a fair bit to say despite that, though, and this new Ben Wheatley film is the kind that might take a few viewings to get quite right. This, will be a first impression.

Bearing immediate resemblance to earlier Wheatley films Kill List and A Field in England, In the Earth steers its own course towards an older tradition of sci-fi horror. Unlike the bait and switch of Kill List that goes from severe geezer gangster to folkhorror or Field that adds trippiness to its costume horror, In the Earth with its use of rainy day woods and the thing at their centre (a standing stone with an eye-like hole gouged from its head) plugging into something ancient and powerful, reminds anyone with a special interest or just memory of old BBC sci-horror like The Stone Tape or Children of the Stones. There are scenes where the expository dialogue approaches self awareness and it's a reminder of the days of Nigel Kneale and the need for clear statement of ideas driven by their density and weight. And there is the durable spookiness of those old shows that pervades here. Wherever you step, on the path or away from it, you are going to encounter something you hadn't bargained for.

But Wheatley is not playing a cover version. The pandemic surrounding the location like a force field is the reason for the scientists to be in the woods in the first place. The notion of the forest giving up a treasure of immunity is so close to pharmeceutical history as to be assumed by the viewer, but the link between asprin from bark and penecillin from mould and this complex living thing is well to the fore. But this is a horror tale and what starts as a simple expedition will have to become a nightmare trek as the science gets sidetracked and the anti-science plays for mystique and ritual. That's the thing that appeals to a world burdened by almost two years of pandemic, the craving for a treatment and the wildly ignorant myth creation on the fringes. This film was conceived and produced in time of COVID-19. Wheatley appears to have finally created an allegory that is almost indistinguishable from its model.

As I say, I probably need to see this again.

I missed it at the protean MIFF this year and it hasn't made it to cinemas so I rented it last night through Prime.